Aftershocks Continue to Rumble Off BC Coast
Sunday, October 28, 2012 @ 11:27 AM
Prince George, B.C. – Emergency Info BC is reporting that an aftershock measuring 5.1 hit an area south of Sandspit this morning.
The afterschock was reported at 9:17 am, about 13 hours after the initial 7.7 quake that was centered southwest of Haida Gwaii. Emergency Info says aftershocks are normal following an earthquake and can continue occurring for several days. Up to 10 aftershocks of varying strengths have been recorded following Saturday night’s earthquake.
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According to the USGS website there have actually been over 30 aftershocks since last night.
Natural Resources Canada maintains a website called “See the Shaking.” The seismograms there show that there has been no relief in the movement for quite some time. A 6.3 aftershock was recorded about half an hour ago. Here’s hoping everyone out there continues to be safe!
Looks like a big aftershock just happened, 6.3.
Wow, anyone know how long aftershocks usually go on for?
It is odd, but since Jan 2008, this is the third major seismic activity in the Haida Gwaii region. The previous ones were 6.5.
This contrasts with previous century were the major quakes in that region occurred every 20 years, with magnitudes of 7.2, 8.1 and 7.4.
In the last few years there have been major quakes in New Zealand, Chile and Japan – three of the four corners of the Pacific Rim. I mentioned to my wife after the Japan quake that with the third corner,Japan, faulting, the coast of BC will have had either a stress relief or a build-up of pressure, and if it is a build-up we will be lucky to escape the damage such as we had seen in the other three corners. We should consider ourselves very fortunate to have this quake occur where it did. It has spared us untold suffering all along the coast of BC. I hope there are no more big ones in store for the coast for a long time.
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